I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
This Is Just To Say
Analysis, meaning and summary of William Carlos Williams's poem This Is Just To Say
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Do you have any comments, criticism, paraphrasis or analysis of this poem that you feel would assist other visitors in understanding the meaning or the theme of this poem by William Carlos Williams better? If accepted, your analysis will be added to this page of American Poems. Together we can build a wealth of information, but it will take some discipline and determination.
The simplicity of William’s crime, eating the plums, just exeplifies the lack of sincerity in the apology. He was probably trying to show how apologies are more of execuses than anything else. The speaker isn’t sorry he ate the plums, which is obvious in his description of them, but he probably doesn’t want his friend mad at him. Maybe William’s was sick of getting lame apologies so he wrote this simple poem…
This poem really caught my attention! I think it is very weird but also great 🙂 …free verse is so good. I recommend to read EE Cummings-I carry your heart (thats my favorit)…
also the only word capitalized other than I is “Forgive” which shows that forgiveness is probably the most important theme in the poem.
if there is any symbolism in this note about eating someone’s plums, it is edenic. the plums are the forbidden fruit, the taste and feel are the temptation(snake), and the ultimate forgiver is god. personally i think he just spaced a note awkwardly and called it a poem. (its just a sentence with white space)
i hate plums but this poem makes me want to eat one and u people talkin about sacred fruit gimme a break u guys must have your heads up your … thinkin that one up
Forget the contents of the poem and focus more on the concept of it. The poem is like an apologetic theory or algorithm that can be applied to any kind of apology or repentance. The contents itself focus more on visual elements – the poem being from the visual era. When you read it, you picture the plums in your ‘minds eye’ the adjectives sweet and cold, also provoke your imaginative stimuli. Was this analysis to deep? The product of deep analysis leads to misinterpretation and is not always the correct answer. Keep it simple. All that rubbish about sacred fruit and virginity? I mean really…….
The greatest thing about being a critic, is that you’re never wrong. Poetry is not about method, it’s about feeling. The greatest poem touches the heart, escaping the mind’ which rapes it’s purity. This is just to say………..escaped my mind, almost touching my heart. Almost.
this good poem. i read this in 12th grade. me really good at reading poem.
this is a great poem i think everyone should read it.. it awesome.
50 posts and only once is the idea of “forbidden fruit” invoked. This suprises me, as it seems pretty obvious.
What made the plums so delicious? I have eaten plums, and while they can be tasty, i have never felt compelled to share my plum experiances with the world. Could the fact that these plums were being saved for some other purpose have fueled Williams’ enjoyment of them? Eating plums is one experiance, but eating forbidden fruit is something different.
This poem does have a certain beauty in its simplicity, but if it is intended as a metaphor for the loss of virginity it is less than successful. The speaker has initiated action independently, and clearly without the consent of the plums’ owner. Therefore, if the poem is about the loss of virginity, it is about a rape. However, the first stanza is a simple declaration – and if the poem is an apology for a rape, there would be no need to inform the woman that she had been raped.
The outside reader, of course, would need to know, but the same information could be conveyed much more artfully by the omission of much of the first stanza, leaving something like this:
You were probably
saving your
plums in the icebox
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet, and
so cold
No, there is no metaphor of lost virginity in the poem. It is, as mentioned in previous posts, the transformation of a simple, everyday event into a simple poem, whose beauty comes from its very simplicity.
My only critique of the poem, as such, comes from the facile nature of such writing. A rectangle is beautiful in its simplicity, but it takes no great skill to draw one – simple poems are much the same.
This is Just to Say
I have been
searching
through your poem
for meaning
but I
have been unable
to find it
Forgive me, William
if I think
your poem
senseless
The poem informs the parent of the person he just raped, and not the victim.
I love this poem. This it the poem that really started me on poetry.
I think its about rape, or someone stealing someone else virginity, while, yes, he feels remorse. He still craves more.
This is a really good poem. It has a really sad and depressed side to it, but it is fun. No one better email me just because I am THE Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance!!!!!
You know what this poem is simple it’s just him confessing about a mistake it’s nothing a dumbass couldnt see.He expresses himself with simple words thats why i love this poet so much(not that way).And having that said i think this has got to be the best peom he wrote.
totally love it! what a man ….making a poem out of a note he probably left on his fridge for his wife! hard to say whether he really thought about how it could be interpreted…but all the same… what a poem!
i don’t understand why you all feel the need to make it into a love story. why can’t it just be a guy apoligizing? i don’t take like he’s actually sorry for eating the plums he’s just apoligizing in a sing-song kind of voice because it’s better than not apoligizing at all.
i think this poem is to show that he is sorry for what he has done. because what he had done was not right. so he is apologizing to someone he hurted.!
everyone who says this poem sucks is just showing how sorry they are for themselves for not being able to express how they feel using simple words and have it come out so beautiful.
having said that, I love this poem.
I think the poem is based on Fruedian theory. The plums which were being saved for breakfast are really a womens virginity (she was saving it for marrage). He apologizes for taking her virginity by asking for forgiveness. It was “so sweet and so cold” because as a virgin it felt so good to him but at the same time so cold because he took something she was saving. Her virginity was something only one man could have.
Well I totally disagree with the eating thing and I the poem is totally metaphoric and symbolic though very simple words were usued. I don’t think it conveys pain at all, he’s merely apologizing to his wife/lover in a nice way.